http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/09/16/second-2nd-amendment-kansas-initiative-would-reaffirm-right-bear-arms?test=latestnews

On a recent morning, Patricia Stoneking aimed her Glock model 23, .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun at a paper target inside the Bullet Hole shooting range in Overland Park, Kansas."That's how you do it," she said as she wound the maimed figure (two holes inches from its center), back into the firing area.

To Stoneking, who runs the Bullet Hole, owning firearms is not just a right but and obligation."People need to arm themselves," she told a reporter, and not just for protection against criminals. Stoneking, who also heads the Kansas State Rifle Association (KSRA), believes Americans must bear arms for protections against the government. "We have to put limits on our government, and that's what the [right to bear arms] does."

Stoneking and the KSRA are now supporting a ballot initiative that would give state residents a perpetual right to bear arms in the Kansas Constitution. It's a measure Stoneking says is absolutely necessary. Gun control advocates are calling it absolutely redundant. "The U.S. Supreme Court," said an exasperated Paul Helmke, "in two different decisions over the last two years has determined that the 2nd amendment is applicable to the states."

Helmke is from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and he says Stoneking already has a national constitutional right to bear arms that would trump anything an individual state could do. "This is completely ridiculous and unnecessary," he said.

Helmke also says he gets "nervous" when gun advocates "talk about taking up arms against the government." He explained, "When someone thinks that they, on their own, can decide that somehow the government is tyrannical and that they can start a revolution, start a civil war, then we're not following the process that our founding fathers set up."

Stoneking disagrees claiming that's exactly what the founding fathers intended. "They knew government could become tyrannical," she said. "We have the right to defend ourselves from a rogue government."

Kansas voters will decide on the measure November 2nd.

Discuss!

I'd like to see this in every state.

I don't see a problem, other than 49 more need the same.

+1



 

Good for Kansas.  

Yes, we need to have this in 49 other states.

Patty FTW!

Patty can be attributed to most of the pro 2a legislation in Kansas in some form or another. She is about as pro 2a as you'll find and pretty much takes shit off no one.

Incredible asset to gun loving Kansans!

Many other States already have this.

ETA: http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/statecon.htm

Kansas currently has a clause in their Constitution that has been interpreted as a collective right, many other States have better worded/interpreted rights:

Kansas:  The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.  Bill of Rights, § 4 (enacted 1859, art. I, § 4).

[Interpreted as collective right only, City of Salina v. Blaksley, 83 P. 619 (Kan. 1905), adhered to by City of Junction City v. Lee, 532 P.2d 1292 (Kan. 1975).  But see City of Junction City v. Mevis, 601 P.2d 1145, 1151 (Kan. 1979) (striking down a gun control law, challenged by an individual citizen, on the grounds that it was “unconstitutionally overbroad,” and thus implicitly concluding that the right to bear arms did indeed belong to individual citizens).]

So all you need are two people to decide its a tyranny then?

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I'm shocked that some states don't have a right to keep and bear arms in their constitution. Hell the US constitution copied ours. Article 1 Section 21, learn it, love it.

Not so long ago the citizens of Athens, TN got fed up with the political corruption in their town and cleaned house:

The Battle of Athens Tennessee

New Hampshire made it clear in 1982:

"All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state."  Pt. 1, art. 2-a (enacted 1982).

Proposed language of Kansas BoR Sect 4:


For Comparison:
Indiana Constitution:

Section 32.
Arms––Right to bear

Section 32. The people shall have a
right to bear arms, for the defense of
themselves and the State.




 

That sounds weak. It needs a shall not be questioned clause.

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"The state and its political subdivisions shall make no law infringing a person's right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, for lawful hunting and recreational use, or for any other lawful purpose."

Sounds better. So no permit for cc?

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